Prominently displayed on the easel pictured here is one of several major works that Morgan purchased in 1907 (for a total of $2 million) from the estate of the German-born Parisian banker Rodolphe Kann. It is a fifteenth-century portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni by the Florentine artist Domenico Ghirlandaio. In the painting, depicted just behind the subject is a gilt-edged Renaissance-era prayer book much like those Morgan housed in the West Room’s vault.
Morgan’s son, Jack, sold the painting in the 1930s; it is now in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Three panels by the fifteenth-century Flemish master Hans Memling, which Morgan also acquired from the Kann estate, remain in the room today.
Tebbs & Knell, New York
The West Room of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library, 1923–ca. 1935
Gelatin silver print
The Morgan Library & Museum Archives; ARC 1612.1